Renault FT-17 and FT-31

Description

The Renault FT-17 was probably the first modern most
successful tank in World War I. However by 1940 it was
obsolete and no match for the German Panzers it
faced.

Three FT-17c tanks leading the
infantry into battle. All in 12mm from Pendraken.

Development

The car manufacturer Louis Renault started looking into
producing a light inexpensive tank in May 1916;
the job being
given to one of his most talented designers: Rodolphe Ernst-Metzmaier.
With features such as a turret with 360° traverse, the
project was far more advanced
than the two models of heavy tanks that were just entering
production (the Schneider CA1 and the St. Chamond). Despite
this the heavier tanks were favoured by the Ministry of Armament and
without the support
of
Brigadier General Jean-Baptiste Eugène Estienne (The Father
of French Tanks) the project would not have gone ahead.

A wooden mock-up was built in 1916 followed by a prototype
called the "Char Mitrailleur" which was first shown in January
1917. It was tested at the Billancourt factory in February and
then in April at the Centre Artillerie Speciale located at
Champlieu.

An order for 100 tanks was then placed and
manufacture started, 84 vehicles were produced in
1917. Production increased dramatically and 2697 tanks were
delivered to the French army before the end of the war. Although the
exact number
produced seems uncertain, 3177
were delivered to the French Army, 514 to the U.S.
Army and 3 to the Italian army.

The first 100 tanks had a cast round turret
into which nothing heavier than a machine-gun could be mounted.
Following this two new turret types were adpoted; the octaganal
"Omnibus" turret made of bolted rolled armor plates and the
rounded "Girod" or "Berliet" turret made of several rivited cast armor
plates.
These latter two turrets could mount a 37 mm Puteaux SA 18 gun or an
8mm
Hotchkiss
Mle 14 machine-gun.

The gun armed tank was designated FT-17c (canon) and the
machine-gun armed tank FT-17m (mitrailleur). Roughly 40% of the
tanks produced were armed with the 37mm and 60% with the 8mm
machine-gun. It should be noted that this is not the in same proprtion
as tanks ordered; 60% of the tanks ordered were to have the 37mm and
only 40% a machine gun.. Although some books use the term FT-18 this
never seems to
have been used
by the French army or contemporary sources.

The FT-17 had a crew of two; a driver in front and a commander/gunner
in the turret. The driver entered the tank through the double door in
the front which formed the decking. He sat om a canvas seat on
the floor, this was uncomfortable when travelling cross-country as it
absorbed almost none of the motion of the tank His view of the outside
was provided by three vision slits and a shutter; although the shutter
was not opened when on the battlefield. The gunner entered the tank
through the hatch at the rear of the turret. He had a canvas belt
sling, serving as a seat, attached to the sides of the manually
operated turret. The turret had no hatch, instead it had a
cupola, a mushroom shaped dome with with five observation slits.

In 1931 the 1580 FT-17 mitrailleur tanks remaining in
service in the French army had their machine-gun upgraded from the
8mm Hotchkiss
to the 7.5 mm Reibel MAC31. This model was known as the FT-17
modifié 31 and was sometimes (although not officially)
referred to as the FT-31.

Internal layout of a Renault FT-17m

Service

World War I

The role of the FT-17 was infantry support. Its main task was
to
eliminate machine-gun nests and
destroy barbed-wire obstacles, enabling infantry to cross the
no-man's-land and to pierce the enemy lines. Although French infantry
were happy to have the tanks in support, neither they nor the tanks
recieved any special training.

German field guns were the main threat accounting for 356 out
of the
total 440 FT-17s that were destroyed during the war. Enemy tanks,
specialist anti-tank weapons (like the Mauser anti-tank rifle) and
mines were only a secondary threat. Terrain problems such as
trenches and shell holes
put more tanks out of action than enemy fire although such
damage could be easily repaired.

Between
the Wars

Betwen World War I and II the FT-17 tanks took part in many
smaller wars and conflicts including the Russian
Civil War, the Polish-Soviet War, the Chinese Civil War and the Spanish
Civil War.

World War II

Although by then completely obsolete, the FT-17 tanks were
still used by
France, Poland, Germany and Finland during the Second World War.

When the Second World War started, the infantry support role
was
still a major part of the French tank doctrine and tanks were
distributed throughout the army in small penny-packets Being intended
for an infantry support role, they had very few AP rounds, only enough
to defend themselves against enemy tanks, the vast majority being HE
rounds. It was intended
to have completly replaced the Renault FT-17 tanks with modern Renault
R-35 or R-40 tanks by 1940. However insuficient modern tanks had been
built so one thousand F-17s went to war in the same role as they had a
generation earlier. Their survieability was much lower as they made
easy targets for German panzers and specilist anti-tank guns as well
the field artillery and when these were unavailable, such as at the
crossing of the Meuse, they even fell foul of hollow-charge equipped
combat engineers.

The American army's first contact with an enemy tank in WW2
was with
the FT-17. During the 1942 landings in North Africa the Vichy
French forces advanced with seven FT-17s supported by infantry. These
were repulsed by three Stuart light tanks under the command of General
George Patton. The Americans destroyed three FT-17s without
loss.

Their final use in combat was in 1944 when the
Germans used them in the street fighting in Paris.

Renault FT-17c

Operation

The commander was very overworked in the one-man turret. Apart
from directing the driver and keeping in touch with other tanks in his
unit (by flags) the commander was also the main gunner and
loader. So in action he would have his head in the
cupola directing the driver, he would then have to spot the
target and jump down into the turret when he would load with the
correct ammunition, rotate the turret by hand onto the target, peer
through the gun-sight and set the range, finally fire the gun.

This was not so much a problem in 1918 when the targets were
most
often stationary such as machine-gun nests and only
occaisionally
slow moving. When the French encountered the fast moving Germans in
1940 the problem became extreme.

The turret had a cupola with five vision slits where more
modern tanks would have a
turret hatch. The commander could not raise his head out of the turret
and thus had a more restricted view than was possible for German tank
commanders who often when into battle so exposed.

As was normal for French tanks there was no intercom. However
the
absence of partition between the driver and the turret
allowed the
commander gave his orders to the driver by nudging his back with a
knee to change direction, and while tapping on his helmet to
start
or stop.

The hard (almost lack of) suspension made the ride very hard
and the
high centre of gravity made cross-country travel very dificult. Some
very nice foot work with the clutch and brake was called for from the
driver to make the ride even bareable and avoid serious injury to
himself or the commander.

Varients

The Char Renault
FT
BS

The Char Renault FT BS was a self-propelled
gun mounting a 75mm
Blockhaus Schneider L9.5 short-barrelled howitzer in a seven-sided
rivited
superstructure that replaced the turret. This increased the vehicle's
weight to 7.2 tons. Due to the size of the gun,
ammunition storage was redude to only 30 rounds. An order was placed
for
970 units but because of the Armistice in 1918 only 39 vehicles were
produced. Whether any saw service in France
during 1940 is uncertain. Some saw action in North Africa between the
wars and were
encountered there by the allies during the Torch invasion.

A Renault FT BS 75mm.

The Char Renault
FT TSF

The Char Renault
FT TSF (Télégraphie Sans Fil) was a
command tank. The
turret was replaced by a box-like superstructure giving room for a crew
of three; driver, radio operator and observer. The vehicle was equipped
with an ER10 ter morse code-only wireless, its wire antenna was hung
between a mast mounted on the superstructure and the vehicles tail. The
vehicle had no armament. 300 vehicles were ordered of which
188 were
produced. Whether any saw service in France
during 1940 is uncertain.

A Renault FT TSF.

Deployment

The Renault FT-17 light tanks equipped a number of
front-line independant tank batalions and companies; BCC
and
CACC.
They also equipped a number of second-line and training units such as
regional tank platoons,
anti-paratroops tank companies,
airfield protection platoons and the
Paris military region special group.

10th May 1940

When the Germans's attacked the French army had 630
Renault
FT-17 tanks in front-line combat units of which 525 were in France.
Units all
contained a mixture of FT-17c and FT-17m mle 31 tanks; in what
proportion is
unsure.